Talk:Error (baseball)

Possible cleanup

I don't think I even understand what this sentence means. Why does it matter if the "team on the winning side of a perfect game" commits an error or not?

"Because a batted ball hit on the fly into foul territory, with the batting team having no runner(s) on base, and a fielder misplaying such ball for an error, it is possible for a team on the winning side of a perfect game to commit at least one error."

It doesn't. I think it merits mention because when people hear 'perfect game', they think of a game in which the winning team made no defensive mistakes, when in actuality a perfect game just indicates that no runners from the opposing team reached base, be it by walk, hit, error, etc. A dropped foul ball with no runners is an error, but it doesn't allow the batter to reach base, so it doesn't affect the perfect game. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.188.17.247 (talk) 18:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

This conflicts with the definition of an error: If a batted ball were hit on the fly into foul territory, with the batting team having no runner(s) on base, and a fielder misplayed such ball for an error, it is possible for a team on the winning side of a perfect game to commit at least one error, yet still qualify as a perfect game.

Yet the opening statement definition mandates that a batter or baserunner reaches one or more additional bases: In baseball statistics, an error is the act, in the judgment of the official scorer, of a fielder misplaying a ball in a manner that allows a batter or baserunner to reach one or more additional bases, when such an advance would have been prevented given ordinary effort by the fielder. In the case of the batted ball into foul territory with no runners on base - how can it be an error if the batter does not advance and there are no baserunners to advance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.169.35 (talk) 23:31, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem with this article is that the definition in the opening paragraph includes a word that does not appear in the rules of baseball, giving the impression that error means something it does not. Specifically, the article currently says, in part, "...a fielder misplaying a ball in a manner that allows a batter or baserunner to reach one or more additional bases,..." The problem is that the rules of baseball (see Rule 10.12) do not say "additional bases" but that the mis-field, "..permits a runner to advance one or more bases...". A fumble by a fielder permitting the batter to advance to first base is an error even though he has not advanced any "additional bases".
This also accounts for the confusion surrounding a foul fly, as discussed above. The answer to the above question is that Rule 10.12 (a) (2) says that an error is recorded, "...when such fielder muffs a foul fly to prolong the time at bat of a batter, whether the batter subsequently reaches first base or is put out." whereas Rule 10.12 (a) (1) says that an error is not recorded if the fielder simply permits the foul fly to land, when under Rule 5.09 (e) the batter returns to home plate if a foul ball is not caught. Therefore, if the fielder permits the foul fly to land he has not made an error but if he attempts to catch it and fumbles it an error is recorded. This would seem to accord with the everyday definition of error but confusion stems, ultimately, from the article's use of the word "additional". I have therefore edited the lead to remove this incongruity. Cottonshirtτ 09:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Records

Herman Long is listed as holding the major league record for most errors, with over 1000, yet he doesn't appear in the records by position paragraphs, nor do the other 1000+ error holders. According his his article, Mr. Long was a shortstop, so shouldn't he also hold the record for most errors by a shortstop? Wschart (talk) 13:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree - this page had issues. Long is the errors leader both at SS (1070) (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/longhe01.shtml) and career (1096) (http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/E_tf_career.shtml) and I'm sure there are other inconsistencies. Please feel free to fix this. Ckruschke (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

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Video

While the picture does show an error, I think readers would understand it better with a video, perhaps one showing both a throwing and fielding error (they can be two separate plays, of course).

As to how to get a free one ... it would be cruel but accurate to say that if you hang around a Little League game you'll definitely get some on camera. Of course, it would help if you knew the people at the game; there is rather low social tolerance at the moment for strangers showing up with video cameras at other peoples' kids' games. And to be honest it probably wouldn't be fair to the kids committing the errors for their mistakes to be the ones illustrating the English Wikipedia's article on errors.

A high school or small-college game (assuming admission to the latter is free) would give rise to less of those issues, although there would be less certainty of catching an error during play. Maybe someone could even approach a minor- or major-league team.

Or, a broadcaster could be persuaded to release a short clip or two under a free license to us. Daniel Case (talk) 04:01, 27 March 2019 (UTC)